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It wasn't fair. It just wasn't. I felt so damn useless. Suzuka was already wounded, and now Fate had gone off like some hero to fight against whoever was attacking the building. A desperate need to be the one protecting the group pervaded my thoughts. It was folly, seeing as how Nanoha and Fate have much more experience with fighting but it didn't make me feel any less useless.
Suzuka lay right where she has been the entire time. On the ground, torso wrapped in bandages and dried blood all over her school uniform, which Nanoha and I had changed her out of. Still, the residual blood marred her usually serene appearance. It was a sight which I could barely bring myself to look at. How long have I known her and Nanoha now? We had met in first grade and now we were midway through eighth grade, which meant seven years. Seven years, and not once have we been in different classes. Even after Fate joined us in third grade, she was also always in the same class. Yet, deep down, I knew I was more upset about Suzuka ending up like this than I would if it were Nanoha and Fate. I'd still be extremely worried, but Suzuka made me worry more.
I should've been able to protect her back then. Instead, I had to be saved by Fate. I knelt, gripping Suzuka's hand with my own. Her hand was warm, a reassurance that she was still alive. A brief one, as the gunfire from down the hall picked up in intensity again. Nanoha and I stayed silent. There was nothing to say, at least until the familiar blonde hair suddenly appeared in the room again, accompanied by someone else; not the same person who was with us earlier.
"We're getting overrun. Let's get the four of you out of here," he says curtly. Something in me flared, and I pull Fate off to one side.
"Are we seriously just running away?" I whisper, furious. I don't even understand why I'm angry.
"We don't have a choice, Arisa. There's not enough of us to survive a battle of attrition against them," Fate shot back. She looked a little worse for wear, visibly shaken and breathing heavily.
"I refuse. These people saved us! How can we just walk away from this, especially if they're losing?"
Fate was beginning to get angry and I wondered if I had overstepped a boundary, but I had committed to this already.
"It's either they die and we get away, or we all die, Arisa. Which would you prefer?"
"How about we fight back and less of us die?"
"I told you, there's too many attackers to-"
"Fine. You and Nanoha go. Take Suzuka. I'll stay and help buy time."
I begin to walk back to the door towards the firefight. Fate yells after me, but I was set. Her words did not reach me.
"Don't be an idiot, Arisa! You being there won't make a difference!"
I ignore her, instead turning to face the man in the room.
"They'll escape," I say. "I'll stay and fight with you."
He looks at me, scrutinising me. It was absurd, wasn't it? A pampered fourteen-year-old girl from a rich family, someone who always had what she wanted, using a gun. I walk down the endless hallways with the stranger. He stops abruptly in the middle, forcing me to turn and look at him questioningly.
"How old are you?" he asks, beginning to walk again at a slower pace.
"Fourteen. Why?"
Closed eyes and a smile, but no response. He takes off his vest and hands it to me. It's bulletproof. Then, we turn a corner to see several overturned tables. A gunshot lodged itself in his head, killing him instantly.
I was a fool. For insisting on fighting. For insisting on being the one to stay and buy time. I must have been in shock, because an arm grabbed me by the hand and pulled me behind one of the tables. It was the one Fate had initially left with.
"What are you doing here?"
I blink, taking a moment to push away the bile that was gathering at the sight of the corpse, with a thin trail of blood flowing out of a small round hole in the head.
"My friends are going to get away. I'm going to help buy time for them."
He sucks in a breath. All along the overturned tables were about a dozen men, taking turns taking potshots at the unseen enemy. He chooses not to say anything else to me, instead peeking over the top of the table to take a shot. He ducks back down as several bullets fly overhead. The hall is dark, and I can barely see my own hands, but I look around. A long, black rifle lay beside another corpse nearby. I pick it up.
I vaguely knew how these things worked. Vaguely. Fumbling around with the gun, I managed to detach the ammunition box. It was loaded, and I push it back in. The copper tang of blood was thick in the air, filling my nose and mouth. At this point, screams began registering in my mind as two people to my right dropped backwards, either wounded or dead. My heart pounded in my chest, threatening to explode.
'Come on, Arisa. This is what you wanted, right? The chance to be the hero, to be the one protecting your friends. Don't back out now.'
A persistent voice plagued what little bits of my mind were still working. Taking a deep breath, I stand up, pulling the trigger. The gun kicks upwards and I'm pretty sure I put more lead into the ceiling than towards the attackers' general direction. The loud klaxon of the rifle fills my ears, replaced by incessant ringing and a quiet clicking when it runs out of bullets. A sharp pain appears in my left shoulder, sending my flying backwards. I'm lying, facing the dark ceiling, breathless. Darkness seeps into the edge of my vision, but Fate's image takes up the remaining view.
"Wh-what are you doing here?" I manage to gasp, sitting up.
"Stopping you from getting yourself killed."
She sounded calm, but I found myself shivering. It was the "we are going to have a serious talk later" kind of calm, and this was when I realised I actually did overstep a boundary with the argument earlier. She picks up the rifle I had been using, reloading it and firing with a lot more ease than I had. I pick up another gun, but without looking at me, Fate stops me.
"Put that down. Just pass me ammunition when I run out. You're not firing another gun."
My previous anger dissipated, and I meekly complied. This was a reminder that she had legitimate fighting experience. She betrayed no fear or uncertainty in her voice or actions. Something bothered me, however. Something nagging at the back of my mind, through a haze of adrenaline.
"Fate. Where's Nanoha?"
The last thing before a blinding pink light fills the hall is the grin on Fate's face. I can hear Fate shout just loud enough for the defenders to hear: "Everybody duck!"
The light bursts brighter, and soon the hall is nothing but pink light.
"Was that really necessary, Nanoha?"
The brunette in question laughs nervously, scratching her head. We were quite a distance away from where we had been fighting. Nanoha had used her magic to knock out all of the attackers. Before the light had even faded, I felt an arm grabbing me and dragging me away from the tables we had been hiding behind. My eyes adjusted to find Nanoha dragging me along, with Fate carrying Suzuka. Before Nanoha could answer me, though, Fate rounded up on me.
"Don't even start, Arisa! We wouldn't have had to do that and flee if someone hadn't run off trying to be a hero. What if you had been shot? What if you died?"
"I-"
I wanted to point out that I HAD been shot, just that the vest had protected me, but Fate wasn't done with her tirade.
"What the hell were you thinking? That you'd somehow escape and catch up with us later?"
"I-"
"What would we tell Suzuka?!"
That was it. She did NOT just use Suzuka as an arguing point. The sound of my palm hitting her face seemed to echo through the field we were in. But that didn't register with me right now.
"Don't you dare bring Suzuka into this. Don't. You. Dare."
The wind picked up, displaying the same agitation Fate and I felt. We stared at each other, eyes filled to the brim with anger. Hers, for Nanoha; mine, for Suzuka. Suzuka was piggybacked on Nanoha, who looked back and forth nervously between the two of us. The silence hung in the air like a wind chime, only that the wind chime didn't ring. It was broken, just like we all were on the inside even if we didn't admit it. I knew we shouldn't be arguing after everything had been torn away from us, but I refuse to let Fate use Suzuka as argument leverage.
Suzuka was above that. Suzuka was our friend. Suzuka was perfect; she shouldn't have to be degraded into verbal ammunition. I wouldn't let that happen. A second slap sounded, and my head jerked to the left. I turned back and saw a cold fury in Fate's burgundy eyes that I hadn't thought possible of the blonde. Inadvertently, I took a step back at the sight. She seemed to radiate malice as suddenly I find myself being lifted off the ground by the collar.
"You listen to me, Arisa Bannings," she begins, enunciating each word slowly and clearly. "No more playing the hero. If you ever do something stupid again; if you want to die that badly again, then I will end you myself. Don't you dare do anything that risks Nanoha's safety."
I nodded meekly, all the fight having deflated out of me. A fear of an intensity I've never felt before gripped me. I'm thrown backwards, stumbling a bit. Fate is storming off. Nanoha looks at me apologetically.
"Are you okay, Arisa-chan?"
"Y-yea. It's fine...it's fine."
We begin walking behind Fate. No one thought to question where we were heading, and we simply followed wherever Fate's anger was taking us. A while later, I insisted on being the one to carry Suzuka. The silence lingers after that, and the sun sets quickly. There is no time to enjoy the view. Fate is still in possession of the rifle, which was slung over her shoulder, along with a pouch that presumably held extra ammunition. I felt kind of bad that we did end up leaving the group which had saved us, but I guess it couldn't be helped since Nanoha had saved them by using her magic.
Fate's limp became more and more obvious over time. Eventually, we had to stop since her injury couldn't handle any more walking. To my surprise, we were in a city now. I hadn't noticed when we entered partly because I was still angry at Fate, but also since we had planned to head toward the coast rather than any cities. The destruction of the city was massive. Only a few buildings stayed standing, and even fewer were more than three floors tall. Occasionally, we saw other people wandering around the city in small groups or alone. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement that everyone would leave everyone else alone. Once, we saw a white cat scurry around atop a mound of rubble. We stopped for the night in an abandoned building. Or at least, Fate and Nanoha did.
I stood on the outskirts of the city, Fate's words echoing in my head. She had been right. I had put all of us in danger. But, now I knew why I had been angry back then. Suzuka wouldn't have wanted to ditch our rescuers either.
"Sorry," I whisper, even though I knew Fate couldn't hear me from across the city. Then, adjusting Suzuka, who was on my back, I turn around and walk toward the orange of the rising sun.
A/N:
Phew! This is actually the fourth time I've written this chapter since it's hard for me to write Arisa due to the lack of screen time she and Suzuka get in the anime. Please let me know what you thought of this chapter, since personally I'm still on the fence about how I wrote this one. I'm also gonna be too busy to work on more chapters since I have exams coming up. While I'm here though, I wanna take a few moments to address some things that people have pointed out to me with regards to the story and respond to their reviews. Here goes :D
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Christopher Yagami:
-Unfortunately not. I've never actually watched any Fate/ stuff, so that isn't really a possibility for me.
Kuro-tan(guest):
-About the teleportation - yes, Fate is capable of probably teleporting herself between the Garden and the Earth, but I personally feel like she wouldn't do that in this context because she would be forced to leave the others behind, and there likely isn't an inhabited planet close enough to Earth that she can teleport to.
-About Arf - Arf's whereabouts will come into the story later on, but for the most part she won't play a major part in this story.
-About the healing - I was not aware that Nanoha or Fate knew any healing magic, and after skimming through Nanoha, A's, and StrikerS again, I couldn't really find any indication that they can do healing magic.
-About Nanoha and Fate's reluctance to use magic - The two aren't very keen to use it because they don't want to risk being found out. They aren't aware (yet) for certain that the destruction goes beyond Japan. Also, in this story they haven't joined the TSAB yet and were only planning to after finishing high school, so neither of them have much training or problem-solving experience.
FateT.H.7:
-I'm glad that you're eager for more! It's not exactly a crossover, but it does have a few small nods to Madoka Magica since it is happening at the same time as In Saecula Saeculorum. Other than the vague description of Walpurgis in chapter 1, there won't be many more references since this is going to be a Nanoha-focused story.
shiiro01:
-Here you go :P